


The True Meaning of One

by zeldadestry



Category: The Prestige (2006)
Genre: Community: contrelamontre, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-10-23
Updated: 2006-10-23
Packaged: 2017-10-09 03:09:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/82375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeldadestry/pseuds/zeldadestry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I don't want to do it, he says.</p><p>(Please note that fic contains SPOILERS for the entire movie. Pairing is listed at top of fic.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The True Meaning of One

**Author's Note:**

> Pairing: Borden/Borden  
> written for the contrelamontre 'foliage' challenge

I don't want to do it, he says.

You must.

It will hurt.

Yes, it will hurt, you know. It hurts because sometimes you want to look at him and see two, not one, not your reflection. Yes, you are living as one, but you are two, and when you forget that, when you think you are only one, that is when there is trouble, when you go and look for someone else so that you can become a two. But you are always a two. Only sometimes it is hard to remember. Twos are whole. A one is always looking for its two.

Julia watched you and Angier saw and that was why he would kiss her onstage, to remind you that she was his. Property. Propriety. A man like Angier appreciates that those two words come from the same root. A man like Angier needs to be above, has to think himself better than. If he hasn't that, he has nothing.

Sometimes you think it is his fault. He found Sarah and in finding Sarah he broke the two and made you one again. A one, who has to pretend to be a two, each time Sarah says I love you, and you must say it back and she shakes her head and it hurts you to know that you hurt her always, that she never sees in you what she so easily sees in him.

A difference. There is a difference. Sarah sees it.

You see it now, with his damaged fingers.

Don't, he says, when you reach out to touch.

Does it hurt?

Of course it hurts.

Fucking Angier.

He thought he owned Julia, and he was determined to prove it to you, and you were just as determined to show him that in no way was he your equal. If you wanted his god damn wife, you'd have her. She'd let you tie any knot that you pleased.

A man like Angier doesn't love, anyway. He only has, owns. Just as he does with Cutter. Little lap dog who jumps and barks and turns all on command.

You mourned for Julia more than Angier did. He only cared that he had lost. She trusted you. She let you take her life in your hands.

But you never intended. No, you never intended.

And how you wondered, how guilty did he feel, your other, when he stood at the funeral and said, I don't know. He has no reason to feel guilty. He would though. He's like that. You're two, not one, and you move again to take his hand in yours and again he pulls away.

You must, you say. You must do it now. No delay. Now!

And he takes the instrument and makes it clean as he can. Both of your faces are clean. No disguises here, when it is just you, you two. Different hands and each time you reach for him he pulls away.

I wish, he says.

But there is no point in wishing. He does not want to hurt you and you want to hurt Angier for hurting him. It all comes out rather nicely, doesn't it?

You are not afraid, not really, when he stands behind you and holds your hand in place against the wooden table. You are not afraid of the pain, you will suffer for the trick, you will always suffer for the trick. But it makes you one again, and you like to remember that you are two.

He puts a strap between your teeth and you clench till you nearly bite through and then you are one again. You are one again, the same, and he holds your head against his chest until the bleeding stops, until all your tears have been absorbed into the fabric that separates your cheek from his beating heart. His beating heart, it races, too, the adrenaline has soaked through both of you. His breath is slower, you let yours join. He exhales, you begin your inhale, you exhale, he begins his inhale, like that, not one, but two, and he pulls just a little bit away, looks at you to be sure, to see you, that you are still there, not shocked, not damaged, and presses a kiss against your damp forehead.

You must go home to Sarah, he says, after he has finished bandaging you, carefully, slowly, he wraps your crippled hand, but all his care can not stanch the blood, which seeps through the white strips and travels in rivulets, leaving red branches in its wake, a leafless tree of fire in snow.

And when you had to dig to find him, you hit roots, withered roots of dead trees that were long gone, and you would pull them out of the way, fast, fast as you could, you chanted it over and over again, no, not even a chant, just one word, shouted, screamed, Alive Alive Alive, and there were no thoughts of how you would reap your vengeance. No, then there was only the thought that he must be alive. He must be alive, and when you finally, finally had him there, beside you, two of you, whole, his hands were bleeding again, from banging against the box, from trying to free himself. He fell forward against you, weak, squinting, the gray day was too bright after being trapped underground. When you took his cold hands into your own and raised them to your lips, he was silent. You took the glasses off to see into his face to see him and you were two. You were two and the wind was blowing and rustling the dead leaves around you and you both looked up, looked up and saw the same sky, you were underneath the same sky, you were there and he was there, and that made two and you walked beside him, you let him lean his weight on you.

When you are in Olivia's bed, through the window you can see a dead tree, its blackened branches still visited by birds, birds who must have known it when it flowered and can not change their obsolete allegiance.

Sometimes the other bird dies all by itself. They are two and after the trick, there is only one, and sometimes that one does not want to go on. It wills its death. It wills itself to follow the other.

But he must not, he must not let himself be like those birds.

He will have Jess, and that will make him a two. And even if he feels himself to be one, he will not leave her to be one. No matter whatever else happens, Jess must not feel she is one.

One is alone, and perhaps you have always been two and one at the same time. Never alone, carrying each other along, always together, then. For as you told Olivia, some part of you could never love Sarah. And yet, some part of you, the part of you that is him, could love her, for his sake. Because if he loves, then you shall love, though not as well. And other parts of you, the parts of you that demand there should be only one two, only you and him, those parts could hate Sarah. But he could never hate Olivia. He could hate her because she caused Sarah pain, but he could not hate her because she and you made a two. Because he is not like you. He can be one of many twos and never find himself like this, like you.

Like fucking Angier, if you must say it. What I can't have, I shall so easily destroy. Isn't that it?

It was always so easy to get the better of him. Even now, even now, when he thinks he has won everything, owns everything, fucking little Lord of his ash heap, you will be there when he falls, when it is his blood that streams back into the earth, and it will be dark, and darker still when his eyes fail, and when he can not see anything, can not feel anything but his utter solitude, it is only then that he will understand.

He could never win.

Everything grows in two directions. Down into the earth, up into the sky.

He is only one. He wanted to be only one. Roots or buds he had to take his choice, and there is no choice. There must be both. There must be two.

You are two.

You will always be two, two who can never be separated.

This is the true meaning of one.   



End file.
